


with my body I thee worship

by emjee (MerryHeart)



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Banter, Body Worship, Competence Kink, Fluff and Smut, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:34:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27482827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MerryHeart/pseuds/emjee
Summary: A coda, of sorts, toAll that I know is I don't know a thing, once again featuring the inter-seminary soccer match, a year later, when Joe is actually able to act on all that thirst.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 49
Kudos: 523





	with my body I thee worship

By a trick of the calendar, the inter-seminary soccer game (or “Reformation redux” as Nile has dubbed it) takes place after the end of the semester but before graduation, so there isn’t any question about whether or not Nicky will be playing.

The upside of this year’s game is that Joe can thirst without guilt, because hey, that’s the love of his life out there. The downside—well, it’s not a downside exactly, because Joe wouldn’t trade their little band for the world—but Andy, Quỳnh, Nile, and Booker have joined him, so he has to keep something of a lid on it. (They’ve picked up Booker in the last six months or so, another adopted family member swept into their lives via the Guard, which has gained a reputation among people in recovery for pairing the best type of bar vibes with a non-alcoholic drink menu that doesn’t suck.)

So Joe’s brought two blankets this year, and extra snacks. Andy and Quỳnh are traitors to the cause and are pulling for Union over Dominican because they have women on their team. (Andy insists that Nicky will forgive them. “He knows I can’t resist women in high ponytails,” she says, twirling Quỳnh’s ponytail around her fingers.) Nile is only casually interested in the game but enthusiastic about cheering on Nicky, who she’s always adored; Booker is as invested as Joe is, albeit obviously without the added layer of arousal Joe’s dealing with. (“Damn,” Booker says, after Nicky pulls off a fairly complicated maneuver early in the game. “Your man has skills.” _Yes_ , Joe thinks. _He really does_. And he hopes he’ll get to see more of them, different ones, once they get home.)

Despite Nicky’s best efforts, the Protestants win this year, although only by one goal, and scored at the last minute. A proverbial Hail Mary, one might say, except for the fact that they’re Protestants.

Joe’s not too fussed about it, honestly, and for all his talk about defending Dominican’s honor, Nicky isn’t either. “The rain falls on the just and the unjust,” he shrugs, accepting a consolatory high-five from Nile.

“Might’ve done better if your team was co-ed,” Quỳnh suggests.

“I will write to the Pope and say so, and that will be what finally convinces him to let women into the priesthood.”

“From your mouth to God’s ears,” Nile laughs.

“Well, we’ll let you get home,” Andy says, ruffling Nicky’s hair without a care for the sweat that’s definitely accumulated. “Make sure you shower sometime between now and tomorrow, I don’t want to stand behind a bar with you unless you’re clean.”

“Sure thing, boss. You do know I’m not seventeen anymore.”

“The stories I could tell you,” Andy says to Joe. (Andy has in fact told him many stories about Nicky when he was young and illicitly frequenting the queer club she used to bartend at.) “I swear you went through a phase when you only washed your eyeliner off once a week.”

“You only _saw_ me once a week, how would you know?”

“I seem to remember a stint during your college days when I saw you at least thrice a week, Nicolò.”

“And now you’re blessed with my presence nearly every day.”

“Blessed is one word for it, sure.”

Nicky claps a hand on her shoulder, a smile tucked into the corner of his mouth. “Love you too, boss. See you tomorrow. And see the rest of you soon,” he says to Quỳnh and Nile and Booker, who all say their goodbyes and start gathering their things.

Nicky takes the blankets from Joe’s arms without being asked, and they walk to the car in companionable silence. If their pace is a bit faster than a leisurely stroll, Joe thinks, well. Look at the man he’s walking with. Who would blame him?

They throw the blankets and Joe’s backpack and Nicky’s gear in the trunk, and as soon as they’re both in the front seats with the doors closed Joe grabs a fistful of Nicky’s shirt and hauls him across the center console for an unabashedly filthy kiss. Nicky, light of his life, knows exactly what Joe’s about, meets him with open lips and a tongue that slides in and out of Joe’s mouth in such a perfect rhythm that for a moment Joe forgets that they’re basically in public. He has one hand grasping Nicky’s shirt, the other buried in his hair, he’s lost in the taste of Nicky’s mouth and the smell of his skin—

“Joe,” Nicky groans. “I have to drive.”

Joe disentangles himself and retreats to the corner of the passenger side. “Well,” he says, after a few moments, when Nicky hasn’t moved to start the car. “The sooner we get home—”

“Oh, I know,” Nicky breathes, “believe me, I know. I’m waiting for enough blood to return to my head that I can safely operate a motor vehicle.”

That makes Joe laugh, and a few minutes later they’re on their way home.

It’s a new place; they moved right before the start of the last semester, when Joe was finally offered an associate professorship at one of the universities where he’d taught as an adjunct. (“I would have followed you anywhere,” Nicky had said, and he’d meant it, “but I’m glad we get to stay here.” Joe was over the moon, himself—he hadn’t wanted to give up the family he’d made at the Guard, and he hadn’t wanted Nicky to have to give up a job he loved.)

They don’t rush inside when they get home, oddly enough. Nicky pops the trunk and strolls around at an obnoxiously normal pace to start collecting their bags, so Joe matches him for nonchalance and tucks the blankets under one arm as though he didn’t spend the entire ride home half-hard. Their strange game of _I’m definitely not out of my mind with lust_ chicken continues as Joe throws the blankets in the laundry hamper and Nicky tucks his cleats back into the closet.

And then Nicky closes the closet door and leans back against it, one eyebrow raised, and the game is over.

They’ve learned so much about each other in the year they’ve been together. They learned a lot about each other before they were together, too, but the lessons of the past twelve months have had a particular emphasis on the pleasures of the flesh, which are numerous and gratifying. So Joe knows what he’s about when he crowds Nicky against the door and holds Nicky’s wrists at his sides, not particularly hard, just enough to make Nicky feel surrounded. Nicky likes that, likes feeling closed in on all sides, if the person doing the closing in is Joe.

They’re kissing now, slow and deep, grinding against each other insistently but without haste. Nicky groans and breaks the kiss, tipping his head back against the closet door, and Joe sucks at the tender spot beneath his jaw.

“Do you want to shower, first?” Joe asks.

“With you?”

“I was thinking we’d do together after.”

“Do you want me to shower now?”

“It’s all the same to me. I want you to be comfortable.”

Nicky hums. “Let me make sure I’ve got all the dirt off, but we’ll save the shower until you come with me.”

“Okay.” Joe presses another kiss to the side of Nicky’s neck and moves to let him make his way to the bathroom.

But before Nicky goes, he stands in the middle of their bedroom and strips completely naked.

“Not fair,” Joe says. “That’s my job.”

“I know you find my sweat arousing, my heart,” Nicky says, walking to the bathroom and leaving the door open so Joe can see him, “but trust me when I say not making you touch that t-shirt is an act of love.” He wets a washcloth and starts running it over his bare legs, wiping away traces of dirt and grass.

“It’s not that I find your sweat arousing,” Joe insists, stripping off his own shirt. Nicky is watching him with unabashedly hungry eyes. “It’s that I am extremely attracted to your body and the things you can do with it.”

“Like what?” Nicky asks, wringing out the washcloth and hanging it over the shower rod.

“Mixing a drink,” Joe says, sliding his boxers down as Nicky comes back into the bedroom. Joe sits on the edge of the bed and oh, he can feel his heart against his ribs when Nicky nudges his knees apart and kneels between them. “Playing soccer. Dancing. Any number of things you do with your tongue.” He inhales sharply as Nicky starts kissing up the side of his neck. “Competence is sexy, light of my eyes.”

“I’ll say.” Nicky’s stroking his hands down Joe’s back now, blunt nails scratching ever so lightly against Joe’s skin. “Remember that night I came to one of your lectures?” It had been one of Joe’s survey classes, a hundred-person cohort in a lecture hall, so Nicky had been able to settle into a back-row corner seat without having to explain himself.

“I didn’t think we’d make it home.”

“The only reason we did is that you refused to fuck in a bathroom at work.” Nicky’s kissing across his collarbone now.

“You refuse to fuck in a bathroom at _your_ work.”

“I work at a bar, babe, it’s not sanitary.”

“That’s not the real reason.”

“You’re right.” Nicky sits back and Joe tries not to whine at the loss of his mouth. “The real reason is that we would never fool Andy and she would never let me hear the end of it.”

“You’re a man with good survival instincts.”

“Coming to watch you teach suggests that’s not entirely true. I thought I was going to pass out.”

“Gotta admit, you’re the first person I’ve dated who’s been in any way aroused by listening to me talk about the Minoan octopus vase.”

“First of all, that vase fucks.” Nicky pulls one of Joe’s hands to his mouth and presses a kiss against his palm. “And seeing you share your love of the best of humanity, the beautiful things we create that are remembered even when we are forgotten? It makes me want to show you how beautiful you are.” He catches Joe’s mouth with his own, a bit harder this time, sucking Joe’s bottom lip between his teeth before he pulls away. “Does it…” he starts.

Joe strokes his thumb across Nicky’s cheek. “Does it what, love?”

“Does it feel like worship, sometimes? This?”

Joe swallows thickly, words gone. Nods.

“Yeah,” Nicky says, on a heavy exhale. “Me too.”

Joe’s tongue darts out to wet his lips; he can’t help it, not with Nicky _looking_ at him like that. “I want you, love. I want to celebrate everything our bodies can do together.”

“Mm. So do I. My legs, however…”

“Tired?” Nicky nods. “We can work with that.”

Nicky doesn’t break eye contact as he says, “I was thinking I could open you up? Nice and slow, like you like, and then you could ride me? Does that sound good?”

This man is going to be the death of him. What a way to go. “Good? Nicolò, I think my vision blacked out for a second.”

Nicky smiles one of his slow, warm smiles. “Better lie down, then.”

So Joe sprawls against the pillows at the head of the bed and Nicky climbs up, slinging Joe’s legs over his shoulders and kissing down his thighs before swiping his tongue across the head of Joe’s cock. Joe tries not to shout, but Nicky knows him far too well to be fooled and says, “Don’t hold back, my heart. I want to hear how good you feel.”

“So good,” he manages. “You make me feel so good.”

Once Nicky’s worked him open with slick, sure fingers, Joe rolls them over and settles his weight on top of Nicky, kissing him over and over, cocks trapped between their bodies and just enough friction to drive them half-mad—

“Joe, please,” Nicky breathes, his fingers digging into the curve of Joe’s ass, “I need you.”

They need each other, they _want_ each other, and they get to have each other, thank God, which as far as Joe is concerned makes them the most blessed men in creation.

Joe sinks down on Nicky’s cock, slowly, slowly. They breathe through it together, and then Nicky moans and twists a hand in the bedsheets.

“That’s right,” Joe tells him, already somewhat breathless, “you don’t get to be quiet either.”

Joe rides Nicky until Nicky comes inside him, breathing erratic but eyes wide open, and as soon as he comes back to himself Nicky takes Joe in hand and says, “Let me see you, love, please,” and strokes him until Joe lets his head fall back and comes in Nicky’s fist, panting his name.

They rearrange themselves so that Joe is half lying on top of Nicky, his head tucked against Nicky’s shoulder.

When they’ve finally both caught their breath, Nicky says, “I know, rationally, that we have to move soon or this is going to get uncomfortable.”

“Yeah.”

“But at the same time…”

“What if we didn’t move for the rest of the day?”

“Yeah.”

They share a quiet laugh, and Joe presses a kiss to Nicky’s chest, savoring the taste of Nicky’s skin against his tongue. “If we get up and shower now, we can spend the rest of the day not moving on the couch.” It’s the same couch that used to be in Nicky’s apartment, the couch where they spent Sunday evenings together, where they had their first kiss. The upholstery pattern isn’t what you’d call fashionable, but it’s the most comfortable couch Joe’s experienced, and given their history with it, he’s willing to suffer the faded plaid.

“As usual, you make an intelligent point.”

Neither of them moves.

“Do we need to count to three?” Joe says.

“I think we might.”

So they do, and they get up, and Joe grabs clean towels from the linen closet while Nicky adjusts the water temperature.

Joe stops in the doorway of the bathroom, arms full of towels, and looks at the love of his life, perched on the side of the tub, testing the water with his hand before switching the water flow from the faucet to the showerhead.

“Nicky,” Joe starts, then finds he doesn’t know what else to say.

Nicky turns and looks at him, his eyes the color of the ocean, his face as open as the moon. “I know,” he says, pulling back the shower curtain and stretching out his hand. “Me too.”

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken from the service for the solemnization of matrimony in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, and I know that A. neither of these characters are Anglicans and B. it's shown up in my fics before, but it was so perfect as a title and I will literally never be over the fact that this is a line in a church service. I will also never forgive the Americans for removing it from the rite in the 1789 American version of the BCP; we've been without it ever since and it isn't fair, you can't hide from me forever, eighteenth century prayer book committee, one day we shall meet and I shall DEMAND answers. 
> 
> Thanks as ever for reading, my dears.


End file.
